"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Left is willing to suspend judgment and waive all standards when it comes to their allies. Feminists nowadays are up in arms about “rape culture,” but 15 years ago they were defending accused rapist Bill Clinton in no uncertain terms: “I would be happy to give him a blowjob just to thank him for keeping abortion legal. I think American women should be lining up with their presidential kneepads on to show their gratitude for keeping the theocracy off our backs.”

Liberalism is simply a set of prejudices, a collection of syllogisms all of which end, “ergo, vote Democrat.” Their smug presumption of their own moral and intellectual superiority makes liberals the most easily deceived people in the world. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is the latest example:

Now Margaret Sullivan, the public editor of The New York Times, is calling on Kristof to “give readers a full explanation” of his reporting on Somaly Mam, the celebrated Cambodian anti-sex-trafficking activist who, according to a recent Newsweek expose, fabricated parts of her story and those of some of the alleged victims she advocated for. The revelations have disillusioned many of Mam’s loyal supporters and left the press looking gullible. Just as importantly, they’ve highlighted the public’s seemingly insatiable desire for heroic narratives — and the willingness of many in the media to provide them.

As Instapundit remarks, Kristof was engaged in “white knighting” — posing as the courageous and enlightened rescuer — and was thus easily played for a chump by “the James Frey of anti–sex trafficking activism.” Liberals fall for this kind of hoax because (a) they overestimate the value of their own intelligence, (b) they naïvely underestimate the ability of cynical manipulators to wrap themselves in the mantle of victimhood, and (c) they are themselves utterly unscrupulous in exploiting any narrative that advances the liberal cause.

Nicholas Kristoff’s status as a privileged white male, with a six-figure paycheck from the world’s most prestigious newspaper, might make him a natural target of identity-politics activists. His crusading on behalf of impoverished and exploited Third World women could thus be seen as a noblesse oblige gesture. This led to him being scammed by a hoaxer, so that he was publishing lies, but hey: It’s the New York Times.

To label the anti-sex-trafficking movement a “liberal cause” isn’t incorrect, but it is incomplete. It is also a conservative cause — look at Congressional sponsors of anti-sex-trafficking laws, the State Department’s TIP program, the Polaris Project, the role of conservative Christian media outlets in promoting exaggerated and fabricated stories such as Somaly Mam’s in their efforts to abolish prostitution, whether consensual or coerced. Promoting personal morality in the area of prostitution and sex trafficking is not limited to any part of the political spectrum, though neo-liberal Nicholas Kristof is the patron saint.